PhD dissertation (2017-2021). Defended Sep 2021.

Collapse: A Warburgian Autotheory of Impacted Interiorities and Folding Bodies

Collapse uses the swooning Virgin in Rogier van der Weyden’s Descent from the Cross as a recurrent theme to develop a fragmentary autotheory on how invisible, historical and emotional impacts have outer consequences involving the self and others.

In order to do so, I borrowed from Aby Warburg’s Atlas methodology, juxtaposing Flemish Renaissance art with contemporary work, and stretch it further to treat texts the same way. Hence, the parallel between Warburg’s pathos-infused, omnivorous approach; and autotheory, where the biographical and the theoretical co-exist and perform each other.

One of the guiding questions of this project was what to do with religious heritage from a secular standpoint; and the answer seems to be to use the deeply human stories revealed in the search for the divine.

This work is forever indebted to my supervisor, Kris Pint, my co-supervisor Koenraad van Cleempoel, and my jury members, Barbara Baert, Arne Dewinde, Edith Dekyndt, Wendy Morris, Hannah van Hove, and Mia You.